Lesson 14

The only things I would have done differently while working on this essay was allow myself more time and to have taken better notes. It just seemed that life kind of got in the way while I was trying to work on this essay. Every time I started to work on it something came up and so I ended up having to stay up late many nights working on it. Also, my note taking kind of got unorganized and some of them I did not even use for this essay. I think that the end result was the best that I could have done, but I feel that if I had allowed myself more time that I would feel more confident about the essay.

Lesson 13

I had consulted Steven at the Writing Center on Sunday. He gave me a lot of great advice for not only writing this essay, but for future essays. The first piece of advice he gave me was to always read your essays aloud and if it does not sound like the way you talk then it probably needs further work. He said to always try and make your essays sound as much like you as possible. He also pointed out that I used the work it too much. He suggested that I not do that and try to explain what it is. Steven also suggested that I try and make better transitions from one subject to another. He also suggested that I be a little more organized when I write. I thought the experience overall was very helpful. I had someone look my essay over prior to sending it to the Writing Center and it was helpful to get another person’s perspective on it. It also forced me to change my thesis statement. The one that I had originally I thought was good, but Steven had suggested that my final paragraph would make a better thesis statement. So that was nice to have someone suggested that for me because that is one of things that still confuses me a little bit.

Lesson 12

Number of questions attempted: 5
Number of questions correct: 4
Percentage score: 80%

I was unable to copy the test score that I received for the second test but I got the same score as above.

Lesson 11

I had dismissed two articles for my essay because I did not think that they provided enough information. One article in particular was about how a town came together to buy and produce food locally. Even though my essay is about the industrialized food system in America, I just did not think that it pertained to my essay. After rereading it again for this assignment made me think that by how this community came together to buy and produce food locally it boosted their locally economy. It created more jobs within their community and it helped family farms stay afloat when a lot of them are going out of business.  Even though it did not talk about the negative side of the industrialized food system it show that by trying to produce and buy locally how it can impact their locally community in a positive way. The second article that I chose not to use for my essay was about an organization that is trying to steer people away from buying industrialized foods and to try and buy more locally. I chose not to use this for my essay because it I just thought that this article did not provide enough information that I needed. After rereading the article again I actually found some information that I was able to use. It also help me include information that I previously was not going to discuss in my essay and that was the impact the industrialized food system had on local communities and local family owned farms. Because of the industrialized farms are mostly owned by corporate companies, family owned farms cannot compete with their prices and are often times forced to sell their land to farm corn and soybean or just simply shut down all together. If they have to shut down this not only effects them, but it also effects members of their community by people who may have worked on the farm not having a job and may end up having to move. So I am glade that I was able to give this article a second chance because if I had not then I would have not been able to discuss this side of the food system in my essay. Neither of these articles were difficult for me to understand they just did not provide enough information that pertained to my essay at the time when I was researching.

Lesson 10

According to a news article, on November 18^th 2011 President Obama signed into law the slaughtering of horses for human consumption.  This practice was banned in 2006 when people who were opposed of this practice banned the funding for inspections. It has been predicted that these slaughterhouses could be up and running in about 30 to 90 days and slaughter up to 200,000 horses annually for human consumption. There has not been a state picked out for this yet, but there are investors who are interested in helping to finance this operation.  Although most people here in the United States do not eat horse meat, the majority of it will be shipped to other countries that do. Since this practice has been banned in the United States, ranchers who have horses that are older or unable to work could ship the horses off locally to be butchered, now have to send them off to Canada or Mexico.  Since the recession it has been documented that people who can no longer afford to care for their horses have also ship them off to the slaughter houses in Mexico or Canada. There is some concern that when the slaughter houses do open that instead of looking for a suitable place to place a horse when the owner is unable to care for it, the slaughter house will be their first solution.  Animal rights groups are arguing that the process of slaughtering is cruel and would be a lot better if the owners had their horses put to sleep by a veterinarian.

Lesson 9

What else do I still need to do?

I still need to do more research on my essay topic. In addition to that I also need to go through and figure out what I can use from the information that I can now. I also I am going to go through all my previous assignments that I have done and look at what mistakes that I have made to make sure that I do not do it again in this assignment.

What do I need outside help with?

The one thing that I keep making mistakes on his my WC page. So I need to reread the book on how to do that and maybe go to the writing center to seek help with that. I also would like to ask my husband or a friend to look over my essay maybe once a week as I work on it to make sure that I am not making any kinds of mistakes.

Why am I feeling threatened by this research paper (if you are)? or Why am I feeling confident about this research paper?

I am not feeling threatened by this research paper as much as I am feeling overwhelmed by it. It is a big assignment that is worth a lot of points and the expectation of it to be completely error free is a lot to take in, but with the help of the writing center and other people that makes it a little easier to deal with at the moment.

Lesson 8

In the essay” Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” by Jean Kilbourne there is an image on page 325 that shows a woman being picked up by the back of her pants by a man and she is bent over as he lifts her off the ground.  It looks as though he is about to slam her into the brick wall that is next to them while two other men look to be getting ready to join in. If someone where just glancing through a magazine and came upon this most people would be shocked by the image or might even take them time to read the small print that says what the image is supposed to be about. The image was run in a Czech Elle magazine and it was an advertisement for jeans being sold to women. It is too bad that we live in a society where people think that in order to sell jeans especially to women that women need to be portrayed in this way.

The article that I read for my research topic is called “Hitting the Wall With the Industrialized Food System” by Asher Miller. The image that is with this article is glimpse of the living conditions that cattle have to endure while living on a farm getting ready for market. For anyone who does not know most cattle have to live in living conditions that would completely horrify most people. They are fed a diet of corn which cows are allergic to and they live in grassless pastures that have enough of their own waste to come up to their ankles. Not only are the living conditions horrible, but they are contributing to some of our environmental issues.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/hitting-the-wall-with-the-industrialized-food-system/

I believe my thesis is a strong statement, but I am always open for constructive criticism and ideas.